Former Pennsylvania Senator, Fox
News Contributor, and current Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum
finished within eight votes of Mitt Romney in the Iowa Caucus. The media
anointed him front-runner status.
How has Mr. Santorum handled this
new title?
Not so well.
First there was this statement
about how he wanted keep black people from getting welfare prior to the Iowa
Caucus:
When it comes to welfare
recipients, 70% are
white people.
Oh kay….
Let’s see how he did when he was
confronted about his anti-gay record. Remember this guy once equated a man marrying
another man to a man marrying his dog. Maybe his views have changed since he
expressed those opinions…
Well, younger people are very
open towards LGBT Rights. What about an older crowd?
Hmmmm….
Ah, here is Rachel Maddow
confronting him on his views on birth control:
This does not bode well for him…
Mr. Santorum finished in third
place in New Hampshire. It may look like that he is no longer the contender,
but Santorum may be getting a bump to his campaign though it might not be
enough to stop the Romney machine.
Major conservative policy
supporters recently met
at a ranch in Brenham, Texas to decide which candidate not named Mitt Romney to
back going into the South Carolina Primary. This is an important race.
Since 1980, the winner has gone on to win the Republican Party nomination. They
didn’t choose any of the candidates from Texas (Perry, Paul), or Newt Inc. They
supposedly settled on Santorum who has his own share of problems as highlighted
above.
With these videos clips, Santorum
represents the social conservative wing of the party. It appears that the Republican
Party is still split over the presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, who represents
the business sector of the party and the rest of the field. Yes, Romney has won
the first two contests and has the lead in delegates, but if you total his
votes from those contests it comes out to 34.4%. According to Gallup’s daily tracker, he
is at 37%. That doesn’t scream front runner status.
With the South Carolina Primary
coming up this Saturday it is going to be interesting about the impact the
social conservative movement will have. As shown in Iowa, of those that
participated in an exit poll conducted by the Associate Press 57% identified as
Evangelical or born-again Christian. Santorum won those that identified as such
with 32% of the vote. South Carolina has some of those similar religious
demographics that Iowa has.
Jon Huntsman said in his
concession speech on Monday that it was time for Republicans to back one
candidate, BUT I am not so certain that they are ready to back Mitt Romney.
This Republican field of candidates is like the AFC West in this recent NFL
season. Yeah, Denver won their playoff game, but did anyone expect them to get
past Pittsburgh? What about them staying within 14 points of New England?
Denver, San Diego, and Oakland
finished at 8-8. Kansas City finished at 7-9. Denver won the division on the
basis of tie breakers over San Diego and Oakland. The only advantage that those
teams had was as a division winner they were going to play their playoff game
at home. Other than that all those teams had serious flaws, much like the 2012
Republican Field, which made it impossible to pick them for a deep playoff run
let alone winning a playoff game.
The statements that Santorum has
made regarding black people, LGBTs, and reproductive rights may work within the
Republican nomination process, but how well do these statements work with the
general public? Not too well as shown in those clips from New Hampshire.
The spotlight is too bright for
him. It is time to pull him off stage and dismiss him as presidential material.
Whoever does win the Republican
Nomination, they are going to have to answer to some of the statements that
they made while campaigning for their party’s nomination. Whoever that person
is, it is going to be difficult to back track on those statements.
And if that nominee thinks the
spotlight is bright now… wait until the general campaign in September.
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